Hi,

I am looking for updos which can be easy styled by myself.
I often have to go out for formal events and don´t want to visit my hairdresser every time (and of course I do not want to pay her three times a month  ;) ).
The updo should be simple but fantastic.

E.

Is your hair wavy, curly, or straight?

For either of the three, you could always do a French twist. It takes a little fooling around to figure out how to get it to look nice, but once you do, it's fairly quick and easy. And you can always dress it up by adding hair pretties -- since I can't use bobby pins to save my life, I typically hold them up with a hairstick or two, using especially pretty ones for more formal occasions, and plain wood ones for casual.

How long is your hair and what is its texture?

Hi,

my hair is rather short at the moment, a few inches more than shoulder length. It is wavy and normal thick.

E.

Hmmm... Have you tried doing pin-curls on your hair? If so, will it hold the curl? (Especially the day after washing, since freshly washed hair doesn't hold updos well?)

If it does, you could do a few pin curls around your face, and then put the rest of your hair up into a bun or french twist.

Most of the updo styles I can think of revolve around buns, actually -- at the crown, at the nape, in between... Braided then put into a bun, plain, with pretty pins added, etc.

That reminds me -- I have /no/ idea how easy this would be to do yourself, but a really snazzy up-do I saw once, was a twist braid that started at the nape instead of by the temples, and then terminated in a bun at the crown of the woman's head. Thinking about it, it'd probably be difficult... but it was pretty.

Hi,

the idea of curls is a very nice idea...on my hair curls stay until next washing. I love wearing my hair in a simple bun (it goes with every style, casual, formal, elegant) but I thought I should try something new. But maybe the well- tried turns out to be the best  :)

E.

I do a modified Gibson that is easy and looks nice, but it won't work with longer long hair. It looks like a Gibson but is done differently.  Begin with a low ponytail that is on the loose side.  Make a hole in back of the elastic & flip the tail through.  Fold the tail into a packet (mine is longer than yours, I fold in half and then half again), you likely will just fold in half or fold the end of the ponytail up. Hold the bottom of the packet and flip it up, stuff the end into the hole from the ponytail.  Push enough hair into the hole until the "loop" of hair that shows is to your liking. Hold it (the "loop") in place and fan it out to the left & right.  Then pin in place around the top and edges. Add decorations of your choice (I place sticks in an X along the top for decoration and to further secure it). Does that make sense?

Also, this is totally & completely pathetic but gets tons of compliments (literally I often get stopped on the street by people who say it looks great and want to know how I did it). Shhhh, I own a fake hair scrunchie (it is called a pouf, it is like a scrunchie but has hair that is about 3 inches long all the way around). I got it at Nordstroms, they have literally at least 40 colors, I have an exact match. I simply lob in on over my bun and add hairsticks to hold the bun. The ends of the you-know-what fan out around the bun and soften it. It could not be easier. Sure, my husband makes fun of the fake hair but I like it!!!

Thanks,

tomorrow I´m gonna try it. I´ll tell you if I broke my fingers (because I am a little bit clumsy)  ;)

E.

wrote on Dec 20^th, 2002 at 5:45pm:

Hi, the idea of curls is a very nice idea...on my hair curls stay until next washing. I love wearing my hair in a simple bun (it goes with every style, casual, formal, elegant) but I thought I should try something new. But maybe the well- tried turns out to be the best  :) E.

There are some great variations on buns in the LongLocks Customer Gallery including one with drapey ropes that I always thought would make a great romantic Prom updo.  You might want to take a look at the gallery for some new ideas.  You can get there from this URL:

http://www.longlocks.com/gallery.htm

Yeah,

I remember this bun it was the lady with the beautiful blond curls, wasn´t it? I´ll try to style all this new ideas and hope they will look great!

É.

Hee hee- I would be the person in those pics - I'm glad others like them - I love making different hair styles with my hair!   I do all my own hairstyles (since not many people want to brave my hair, though I've learned to control it far better than I ever thought I would!) and they're all fairly easy - some braiding websites I've used for ideas are:

http://www.dreamweaverbraiding.com/
http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~klsabin/braids.html

I like trying lots of romantic/renaissance styles - these sites are great for ideas, and they have instructions with pictures too!

my hair stays really easily because it is so curly and somewhat coarse, so I use very few (if any) additional bobby pins unless I'm doing something like the hanging ropes beneath a rope bun or the like - a great product to use for controlling hair when putting it up is Ouidad's Climate Control Gel (you can get it from http://www.oiudad.com) Ouidad is the best stuff for curly hair, and the climate control gel is great for anyone's updo's and controlling frizz regardless of hair type!

Hi,
I went to the sites you suggested but I can't really figure out how you did that bun with the ropes hanging down, the instructions are pretty strange  ???... so could you please tell me how you did it? Thanks.

;D  In the directions from those sites - the hanging ropes would be considered accent braids (you could do them either braided or rope style).  gather your hair into a ponytail where you want your bun centered - then before you make the bun - save a chunk of hair from each side of your ponytail for the accents (you can pin them away from your bun if you need to to keep them out of the way) - and make your bun with the rest of your hair (I think in the picture, I actually made a rope first and then coiled it into a bun).  Once that is pinned in place - go back to one of the side pieces you left out of the bun and braid or rope it and then attach it to your main bun leaving it draping - then repeat on the other side and pin so that the drapes cross prettily - you could also do more than 2 drapes by leaving more sections of hair out of the main bun...

Hope that helps!

Ooh now I get it! Thanks a LOT! It looks really great.. my hair is dark brown and it's curly when it's short but very wavy when long. Anyway you were a great help and might I add you have lovely hair!

Why thank you!  And it's no problem - there are lots of great variations you can do from the same technique too - have fun experimenting!!!

I styled the bun with hanging ropes on my sister who has blond hair to waist...it looked fantastic!

oooo - pictures please!

Does anyone else have any ideas on some nice updos?

If you can afford it and you have really long hair, you might want to try the Patrick Cameron "Dressing Long Hair" books, they have *gorgeous* updos in them.  We have them listed in the LongLocks Hairstyles Library (which is an Amazon library), but you might be able to find them somewhere like half.com for less, since they are a bit pricey.  Worth it tho!  Here's the link to the Hairstyles Library incase you want to check them out:

http://www.longlocks.com/hairstyles-library.htm

If I do my own hair for the prom, how can I ensure that it doesn't fall down? When I do the bun with hanging braids I keep the braids up with bobby pins, but after a while they fall out, what else can I keep them up with that will hold more securely?

to get the bobby pins to stay better use two on each hanging rope and be sure that they criss cross each other - that will keep them more secure...when I do them on my hair my hanging ropes or braids are also long enough that I can wrap some part of it over the bun as well and secure it another time there - that often helps...and while I don't usually put a rubber band on the end of the hanging rops or braids that would help make a better tacking point for the bobby pins

Ok thanks a lot, I usually just put one bobby pin to secure the braids but I'll put in two this time and criss cross them. I'm going to try it to school today  :P

Yay! The bun took 5 minutes to do and it lasted 7 and a half hours! I usually need to take a hairbrush and a scrunchie to school, if the style doesn't fall off (which it always does!), my hair gets frizzy or messy looking. But today it was fine all day long! And it's also relatively clean, I washed it yesterday. ;D I'm so happy that my wavy hair holds updos well!

One updo I have always liked for formal events is a knotted bun with hairsticks.I brush my hair back like I would for a HIGH ponytail,then make a knot close to my head and secure it with one or two hairsticks(like a normal bun)The length of hair is allowed to hang down freely,I think this always looks quite elegant.
Anne-Marie

I never had problems as my hair was reasonably long but at its present condition it is for tearing one´s hair  >:(

I'd like to try a knotted bun. My hair is only mid back at the moment  >:( but once it's longer I will try it  :). It's easy to curl my hair, I just braid it while it's damp (will work on anyone with wavy hair), and I think it would look nice with the curls hanging down.

Yeah when my hair was healthy I did often a braid to get real curls  ;D
Think a knotted bun with hair that is long enough to hang down in a ponytail after knotting must look simply gorgeous.

Ah ha - here's an easy cheat to get the same effect if your hair is not long enough for the knotted bun, but can make a sufficiently long enough ponytail:

Pull your hair into a ponytail at the desired place on your head.  Take about 1/3 of your hair and coil it around the other 2/3 to make a "bun" around the rest of your ponytail.  Secure the bun with hairsticks and if necessary bobby pins or my personal favorite for tough buns - a hair screw (though I haven't found them anywhere in a long time).  And voila - it looks like you knotted your ponytail and you still have plenty of hair left hanging for the effect! ;D

Cool  8)  

I can't wait to get home and try both of these!!

wrote on Feb 13^th, 2003 at 3:46pm:

Ah ha - here's an easy cheat to get the same effect if your hair is not long enough for the knotted bun, but can make a sufficiently long enough ponytail:

Thank you  ;D

wrote on Feb 13^th, 2003 at 3:46pm:

my personal favorite for tough buns - a hair screw (though I haven't found them anywhere in a long time).

I found a wonderful hair screw at the Bronze Jewelers.  They also have metal "snoods" or bun covers and barrettes.  Here is a link to their site.
http://www.bronzejewelers.com/

OOh the cheat sounds fun! How long is your hair Space_Cadet?

Well - when it's wet or pullled straight my hair reaches my waist - but since I've got incredibly curly hair (see the customers gallery - I'm the blonde curly hair with pictures of 3 sticks) my hair falls about 6 inches above my waist when it's just down and I let it dry naturally (which is typical).

My hair makes a knot really easily though - and holds it on it's own - I typically to the knotted ponytail part but just with the top half of my hair for a great effect (and use sticks to hold/decorate it).  For the knotted ponytail with my whole hair I usually do the cheat way I mentioned unless I do it on my hair when it's wet - then I'll do it the real way and usually do something like shape the curls as they dry or make lots of little braids in the tail.

Wow that sounds cool! Try and get a pic for us if you can  ;D

Pictures of what?  My hair or a specific 'do?  I've got one on my sig here and 3 on the customer gallery pages..unless you mean someone else?

Oh actually I meant a pic of your hair in the knotted ponytail!  :D

Hi! I'm looking for a picture of a prom updo, and I think I have something in mind.. I'm thinking of a hairstyle that has twisty-type things, and at the tips, kind of spikey.. Am I making sense?? If you have any pictures of something like that, please reply and tell me where I can find them! Or even if you know any websites that have pictures of updos for prom, please help me find them!! Thanks alot!

Here are a couple of sites with styles:

http://www.fortunecity.com/boozers/kahuna/429/index.htm
http://gallery.hairboutique.com/default.asp

This might be what you're looking for: http://www.hairboutique.com/tips/tip1475.htm

I am going to prom on April 17th! Which is just like 3 or 2 weeks away!  I am really scared because i have everything picked out and just have no clue what to do as a hairstyle!   ???  I am just sooo confused!  I have already looked at the sites that you ladies have posted but I dont like any of the hair styles they have on those sites!  If any of you could give me any other sites I would greatly appreciate it!  Thanks :)

I've been checking out the Crowning Glory web site, and noticed in particular the style at the bottom right on page http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~klsabin/crown-photos.html

How do they do those twisties? Would it look goofy on curly hair?

/Kate

Kate;
Aren't those styles on Crowning Glory great??!!  I'd love to have someone around all the time to braid my hair like that.

Anyway, the twisties.... they are done by taking a small amount of hair and twisting it until the "rope" twists back on itself.  In this case, they have probably twisted the rope and forced it to curl back on itself, then pinned it down, continued to twist making another twistie, pinning it, etc.

I have seen this done on curly hair and it looks fine.  You might want to play around with the amount of hair that is used to create the twistie to get the desired effect.  The more hair included, the bulkier the looping will be.

Thanks bikerbraid! I have a few *very* short locks on the crown of my head, and have been wondering how to do something fun with them until they are long enough to ponytail.

/Kate

P.S. I like your new photo!

wrote on Apr 16^th, 2004 at 6:17pm:

Thanks bikerbraid! I have a few *very* short locks on the crown of my head, and have been wondering how to do something fun with them until they are long enough to ponytail. /Kate P.S. I like your new photo!

Thanks, Kate.  The picture is actually 2 years old.  When I went biking this week, my braids now criss-cross over the helmet - hopefully I can get a new pic soon.

Doing the twisties on shorter hair is an excellent idea!  If you need to dress it up, you could get some of those crystal bobbi pins to hold them in place, or put the tiny flowers in the center of the twists.

erk my prom is this Sat. the 24th and ithink i found a hairstyle maybe but ireally wanna keep looking @ what else i can do i have a picture of what i wantin my hair to look like:| though i don't think i can explain it ??? >:( but please help if you can!! :-* :-* ;) latero

Holy Cow!!
Space Cadet! Those braid sites wre AWESOME!!

Once I actually get my hair long enough, I need to teach a friend of mine how to do them so that she can put my hair up for me.

I REALLY like the Dutch Classing with the braid hanging accents. *Dies for sheer gorgeousness*

~Kaylin

Yeah - the sites are great and the briads are really easy once you start practicing - I can do a 5 strand fairly easily now, and it looks so much more interesting than a plain french braid.  Good luck practicing!

Hey Space Cadet!!!!  Glad to see you around again.  Hope things are going well for you.

I need to work on my 5 strand braid - it is still a mess when I do it.

Yes - been extremely busy with graduation, starting a new job, buying and moving into our first house and going to a lot of weddings - I have some more updo's I should really put pictures of here if I can - though time is lacking, but I will soon

it won't take too much practice - the hardest part of multiple strand braids is practicing the fingering - since your hair is long, I think before working on the french or dutch style you may want to just practice on all of your hair divided and gathered at the nape of your neck so that you can braid it over your shoulder in front of you and your arms won't get tired over your head while you practice - that's what makes it easy to finish up my french braid when I do it - knowing I only have to have my arms up while I'm still on the scalp part!

Hey!  I was just looking thru the customer gallery, and one that really caught my eye was Stacy Daniel's "conquistador", that looks so cool!  Does anyone have any ideas how that is done?

Hmm, Maggie, good question! It's a bad picture, so it's hard to tell.  My first guess is that it's a short ponytail with a hair colored scrunchie.  If that's the case, unfortunately it probably wouldn't look as good in 'real life' as it does in a very dark pic.
If it's not that, it could be a hair knot, with the end of the hair coming out of the middle of the knot.

Actually, the more i look at it, it looks like maybe a french twist was done first, and then it looks like the excess hair was wrapped around the center spurt of hair and secured with stix.  I wonder if a hair tie was used at the top at all, I'm not very good with up-do's and how to do the up-do's that they do so well...(wow, how corny :P)

Here's what it looks like if you brighten it up:

http://www.katherinesweet.org/images/stacydanielbright.jpg

Still can't tell exactly what it is, but it doesn't look like a French twist.

I can see why you thought it looked like a french twist.  I think I know how she got it to look like that.  Bend over from the waist, so your hair is falling towards the floor.  then gather the hair (with your hands at the top of your head, slightly below where you want the bun/knot to be) and twist it to the left.  That will create the twisty look.  i don't know about the rest of the style, either its a hair knot with long thin hair or a flip-flop of some sort with short hair (with a very well-hidden hair tie, or none at all?) with the ends arranged to stick up.

Thank you eKatherin for brightening that picture up for us, it is much easier to see now.  And BraiderSC, I think you have the right idea with how that was done, I'm going to give it a shot, maybe I can come up with something close.  I just really like the way the hair spurts at the top, it looks funky!  So maybe i can be creative and even come up with something on my own...stranger things have happened!  Thanks again!  -maggs

Alright I have seen many pics of bikerbraids hair braided then taken ot and it curly and also space-cadets how do you guys do it? Did you comb it after you took out the braids and if so how did you keep it from getting frizzy afterwards? If i comb mine after i take out the braids its all fizzy and fluffy.

Sorry here - my hair is naturally curly, so I can't do a thing about it - except control it!  I'm a oudid girl (www.ouidad.com) and love the stuff, and my touchable curls (now if only I knew not to brush my hair when I was in middle school...)

After I take my hair out of a braid it's actually a lot straighter than normal for me!

Space_Cadet!!!! Good to see you post again!  I thought that you might have gotten lost in cyberspace!

To answer Legomypago's question:  If I am braiding my hair specifically to get waves in my hair, I will first oil my hair from the ears down.  When I braid it, I will wet my hands so that the hair will stay neat in the braid longer.  When I take the braid out, I gently unbraid the braid.  After my hair is completely out of the braid, I will gently finger comb my hair to separate it more.  If necessary, I might lightly oil my hair again to tame any frizzies or flyaways.  

The general rule for great looking waves - do as little as possible to them.  ;D

Not last in cyberspace - just lost in MA!  We bought a house this summer and it was really used looking on the inside - nothing really structural or major - just tons of work to do like painting, trim work, and chaning fixtures - we're finally nearing done and really working on unpacking - hooray!

And now I can get back to my hair!  I need a haircut badly, my hair looks like it's longer, but the ends are in terrible shape :(  I just can't get my hair much longer than mid back - about where my bra strap is :(  I want it to my waist at least - when it's dry I mean!